Niseko Onsen-kyo

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The Niseko springs are scattered across the flank of the Niseko range, spanning the towns of Niseko and Rankoshi. They did not begin as a resort. They began as a sulphur mine, worked from before the Meiji period; when the railway arrived in 1904 the traffic increased and the baths were developed alongside it.

What makes the area unusual is that the water is different in each part of it. Five districts — Konbu, Yumoto, Goshiki, Niimi and Annupuri — each have their own springs. At Yumoto, hot gas heats a lake into a large steaming pond, and the yellow spheres of sulphur floating on it are considered scientifically notable.

Most visitors know Niseko through Hirafu, in the neighbouring town of Kutchan. This is not that place. It lies inside a quasi-national park, still mostly old inns and pensions, and the Ministry of the Environment's own plan for the area describes it as the slower side of Niseko.

The Shiribetsu river running through the middle of it has been rated the cleanest river in Japan.

Sources: 環境省 ニセコ温泉郷 国民保養温泉地計画書

Up to five within 40 km, straight-line, nearest first. Quality rank is out of the 395 Japanese ski areas.

The snowfall shown here is an estimate produced by a weather model, not a record of what actually fell.

We compared it against 63 Japan Meteorological Agency weather stations to see how far off it is. On average it comes to about six tenths of the real figure — it runs low. And it runs low by different amounts in different places: some read barely a third of what was measured, others match almost exactly. Mountains tend to read lowest.

We tried scaling everything up by a fixed amount to correct for it. It barely helped, because the error differs from place to place.

So treat these numbers as a guide to roughly where somewhere sits, not a precise figure. There is no meaning in the gap between first and second, or between 30th and 35th. Large differences between regions are real and can be read as they are.

We are working on replacing these estimates with observed values.

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